✧ Scene: The Space Between

Zahra didn’t look for him after the session.

She stayed for the next panel.
She even took notes — methodically, almost too methodically.
But her mind spun like a prayer wheel.

She had felt his presence before she saw him.
The way someone feels the shift of gravity when another soul steps into the same field.

But she told herself:

You don’t know him.
You’ve made him a symbol.
You’ve projected a longing onto a man whose name you still don’t even know.

And anyway — how often have women been punished for reaching first?
How often had she been told her intuition was mistaken, dramatic, “too much”?

So she chose dignity over desire.
Stillness over speculation.

If he sees what I see, he’ll return.
And if he doesn’t… that’s still a kind of answer.

Aaric had wanted to speak to her.

His body even turned slightly in her direction.
But years of discipline stilled him.

He’d been raised not to act on impulse —
Raised to believe restraint was a virtue, that depth required delay.

Besides…

What if he was wrong?

What if she didn’t remember Córdoba?
What if she wasn’t drawn to the same thread, and this was only poetry masquerading as fate?

And deeper than that — darker:

What if she did remember… and still walked away?

He wasn’t ready for that answer.

He wasn’t ready to become a man undone by a moment.

So he told himself:

Not yet.
Let this become real first.

He returned to his hotel room.
Read her paper again.
Underlined three lines.
And closed the book.

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